Music / Reviews
Review: Mirador, Trinity – ‘Glorious guitar riffs and drum solos’
Anyone who was lucky enough to be at Ida Mae’s Louisiana gig in December 2023 will have accidentally seen three-quarters of brand new band Mirador in our city, long before their inception.
Chris Turpin, one half of criminally underrated blues-rock Americana duo Ida Mae, has since formed Mirador with Jake Kiszka of Grammy-winning Greta van Fleet.
The ensemble is completed by Nick Pini on bass and keys, and Mikey Sorbello on drums, yet pirate-obsessed Jake is the only one who hadn’t played in Bristol before, despite it being the land of Blackbeard.
Chris and Jake, as swashbuckling co-frontmen, provide blistering vocals and guitars, at times practically duelling with their lyrics and instruments, as on the irresistible Raider.
We’re literally and metaphorically invited to come on a journey with them throughout the gig, and this multi-generational audience follows gladly, especially on the crowd-pleasing Feels Like Gold and Fortune’s Fate.
Yet Chris doesn’t have to hop on a pirate ship to get back home – when not in Nashville, he’s based just outside Bath, with wife and fellow Ida Mae band member Stephanie Ward.
Mirador bandmates Nick and Mikey don’t demand much of the spotlight or do any of the talking, but they deserve their laurels for underpinning the whole thing, particularly in adrenaline-charged songs like Blood and Custard, plus their jams on the bass and drums definitely go down well.
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At several points, band members turn to face Mikey at the drum kit, playing as an even tighter unit and cementing their bond; it seems like we’ve snuck into a studio session.
Nick’s atmospheric Mellotron-charged work on Skyway Drifter is another highlight, which feels (if you rightly appreciate the talent of Mark Knopfler and co) very Dire Straits.
When musicians form a new group as a side-project, they always face fan rumours that the original band is calling it quits, but there’s no reason to panic here.
These songs have their own standalone tone that’s set apart from both Ida Mae and Greta Van Fleet; more brooding, British folk-tinged and angst-ridden, with promo material shot amid English Heritage castle ruins and inside a medieval Gloucestershire church, they would have felt odd crowbarred in elsewhere.
Folklore has made a huge comeback in British culture (see Weird Walk, Hellebore magazine, Charlie Cooper’s Myth Country, NeoAncients Festival, and the renaissance of Black Sabbath and solo acts like Patrick Wolf), so it makes perfect sense to channel this energy right now – plus, most of Mirador is based in the UK.
The support act for the gig was also UK-based: Lady of Mars, a promising four-piece indie rock group which, for me, had flavours of Placebo, Pat Benatar and Patti Smith.
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The overwhelming use of flashing lights (bordering on strobe effects) is something I’ve griped about before at venues in Bristol and beyond.
It’s by no means exclusive to Trinity or to Mirador – or indeed to music, seen in everything from Eurovision to theatre shows and Strictly Come Dancing – but the lighting was triggering at times.
It’s not very rock & roll, but people with various types of migraine (mine is vestibular), epilepsy or sensory processing disorders can face days of sensitivity and pain afterwards.
Unfortunately, turning away from the stage with your hands to shield your eyes not only ruins your street cred, but breaks the spell between audience and band, and I wasn’t the only one having to do this.
I’d love to see acts, venues and lighting techs keep the focus on accessible performances, so everyone can fully absorb those glorious guitar riffs and drum solos.
Mirador’s output stands at three singles and one album so far, but if this gig is anything to go by, we can expect them to be around for the long-haul.
As one man put it on leaving the gig, “I’ve not seen playing like that since I was young.”
In fact, Bristol is treated to a more stellar version of Must I Go Bound than appears on the album, its extended ending stronger and almost psychedelic, adding something extra to the interpretation of this classic folk ballad.
If the journey continues to go down these intense paths, I’m sure even more fans will follow Mirador ‘through the whispering pines’ mentioned in Raider, and perhaps to the ends of the earth.
All images: Polly Allen
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